03/13/05

Sometime ago I have fallen behind on using my ReplayTV to view down-converted HD.

Mainly because I have an HD DVR from the cable company....

Pretty much the main reason to continue using the ReplayTV with down-converted HD is either stuff I can record from HD, but won't get around to watching right away...because the HD DVR only holds about 15 hours worth of HD, so I have to watch it just about every night in order to avoid running out of space. And, Sinclair operates FOX and ABC in my area...so these stations aren't available on cable.

Then on March 9th, NBC went off the air....they are in the process of upgrading to a more powerful transmitter ... they do have a 1kW transmitter for the interim...though I hear it is currently at 750W, due to a problem with not having the right fuse for it.

Well, what happens....the HD DVR is on the blink.... And, there are new episodes of L&O:CI and Crossing Jordan tonight....

Since the problem couldn't be resolved over the phone, and the service call is scheduled for Tuesday...I was starting to pull my hair out (which is hard, because there isn't much to grab on to).....

But, luckily, it turns out that I can still receive NBC-HD OTA from my apartment...so at least I can now use my ReplayTV to get the shows. I can still get the shows in HD...and not have to resort to doing something alien like watching it live.

Though I do have to rework my scheduling a bit...in case things don't get resolved on Tuesday.....I want to make sure I get to see this week's episode of Committed.

Well, I called Time Warner about the problems my SA8000HD is having. After a reboot cycle (I've already done this numerous times already), and the problem continuing. They setup a service call to have somebody come out.

03/12/05

My SA8000HD DVR seems to be sick....I think the harddrive is going bad.

Last night while watching a recording...it started stuttering and then rebooted. Fortunately, I had recorded the show in SD on my ReplayTV, so I could watching the ending.

This evening, trying to settle down in front of the tube after a long day working volunteering at the Ohio State Mathcounts.....I found that a movie that it should've recorded in my absense was recorded in pieces as it seemed to reboot a few times during it.

Tried watching other seemingly complete recordings to only run into other issues elsewhere....seems certain DVR functions make it workse, such as pretty INFO or pausing. an HD channel makes the crash sooner.

Even just watching live TV will eventually cause it to reboot. Like as it fills up the live tv buffer...it eventually hits the bad spot and bring it crashing down.

I guess it is time to call TWC and see about getting it replaced....and I was just thinking the other day that it might be time to become a 2 HD-DVR household. Though the lack of ABC-HD and FOX-HD on TWC is kind of holding me back (compounded by the fact that there is not going to be anymore Dead Like Me on Showtime-HD)....

03/11/05

Well, I think I can finally see the light for getting out from under that power outage back on March 7th.

While the power came back later that evening....not everything in the computer room at work did.

At least the one computer that was giving me problems before the power outage did restart, because I had enabled that machine to page me as it went up and down and it paged me when the power returned.....

When I got back to the office after lunch...I found the lobby dark....and a few more steps, I realized the power was out in the building. Apparently, it is an extensive outage. And, it had only happened a few minutes before my arrival.

So, I waited around watching the computer room to shutdown on its own and we hung around some more until the landlord told us to go home, because he didn't want to be liable if anybody hurt themselves once the emergency lighting failed.

Oddly, again, the power is fine in my apartment....across the street from the office. I suspect there's a difference between residential and commercial power....aside from the obvious the building power is 3 phase and my home service is 2 phase.

Now instead of subjecting some poor random forum to a long rambling thought, I will try to consolidate those things into this blog where they can be more easily ignored profess to be collected thoughts from my mind.